Police Make Arrest In Double Murder, Seek Two Others

June 25, 2006|By Brian Haas and Elizabeth Baier Staff Writers and Staff researcher William Lucey contributed to this story.

The night that Miguel Maradiaga saw his uncle and his friend shot dead in front of him, one of the attackers left a trail of blood from an injury.

Friday night, that trail led a Fort Lauderdale fugitive detective to Norman Brown, 21, a Broward County man who police say led police on a short chase and fought off three officers before he could be arrested on murder charges.

Police are still searching for two other men involved in the double homicide and investigating whether the three were responsible for other unsolved crimes.

"He was a fugitive and a danger to other people," Maradiaga said Saturday. "For me this is a very happy moment. I'm relieved because now I'm not in as much danger."

Maradiaga choked up as he described being scared to walk outside his Fort Lauderdale home, where he watched a gunman kill his uncle and friend on May 19. That night, police said, Maradiaga and his uncle, Oscar Castra, 44, and friend, Jose Alfredo Sanchez, 36, were relaxing outside their apartment in the 800 block of Southwest 30th Street just before midnight when three men approached with guns and demanded money. It was payday, so the laborers had pockets full of cash, Maradiaga said.

According to Brown's warrant, one attacker shot Sanchez in the head. A medical examiner told detectives the gun couldn't have been more than two feet away from Sanchez's head because of the gunpowder burns on his skin. Another shot hit Castra in the chest. Both died at the scene. Maradiaga would have been the third murder victim if an attacker's gun hadn't jammed.

The three men fled, with one bleeding from a wound.

That blood led police to a suspect, a teen who showed up at Broward General Medical Center with a gunshot wound. But Kevin Noppinger, a Broward Sheriff's Office crime lab technician, found the teen's blood didn't match the blood from the scene.

Noppinger found a match Thursday in a statewide database -- Brown, who has been arrested at least six times since 1997 on charges that include robbery and attempted murder, state records show. Court records indicate none of those arrests led to a conviction.

Fort Lauderdale Detective Chuck Morrow, a veteran fugitive investigator, picked up Brown's trail within 24 hours with the help of Broward County Crime Stoppers tips. Morrow, along with FBI Special Agent Paul Russell, spotted Brown's red Nissan in the 6400 block of Northwest 62nd Street. Morrow said Brown fled on Northwest 31st Avenue, blew through a red light and crashed into an SUV carrying two adults and a child. All three were treated for minor injuries.

Morrow said Brown ran two blocks from the crash before officers caught up. "It took three of us to get him in cuffs," he said.

Brown is being held in the Broward County jail on two counts of murder, one count of high-speed fleeing police, two counts of obstruction and one count of leaving the scene of an accident with injuries.

Brown's arrest warrant acknowledges that detectives don't know whether he was the triggerman in the killings. But investigators believe he was a principal, or key accomplice.

Police spokeswoman Detective Katherine Collins said investigators are hoping tips from the public will lead to the arrest of the two other men involved in the attack or shed light on other crimes Brown is suspected in playing a part.

Anyone with information on the double-homicide or Brown should call Crime Stoppers at 954-493-8477.